Well, we have come to the start of another year (where did the last one go, it only seems like a few months since I was last writing one of these posts!).
I trust you all made good use of the extra ‘leap second’ that we had a short while ago, it would have been a shame to have missed it. 😉
Seriously though, I hope you will all join me in thanking the Fifteensquared bloggers for their sterling efforts during the past twelve months and, of course, the setters and their editors without whom we would not be able to enjoy our pleasurable pastime (or should that be addiction?). As I said last year, “I, for one, would be lost without my daily fix of cruciverbal challenges and I’m sure many other aficionados feel the same way”.
My thanks are also extended to all who visit the site, particularly those who participate in the discussions which, for the most part, are a pleasing addition to the solving experience, not to mention valuable feedback for the setters (at least when the comments are constructive).
In conclusion, it just remains for me to say that I hope you enjoyed the recent festivities and all the best for 2017.
Happy New Year
Geoff
Our heartfelt thanks to you Geoff for your support during the last year.
A very Happy New Year to all those who are part of fifteensquared – including the lurkers! We were lurkers for quite some while before we finally commented.
Happy New Year to everyone.
I wonder when precisely the extra second occurred? If it was 1 pm NZ time, then I missed it…
Happy New Year all. Many thanks for all the comments throughout 2016 and may your ghost theme spotting go well in 2017!
Best wishes,
Qaos.
Thanks to all setters and bloggers for lots of fun, coupled with scratching of the head, throughout the year.
All the best for 2017.
I too want to thank all those involved in making this site the invaluable resource it is – setters, bloggers and commenters, and particularly Gaufrid for the work he does keeping the site running. I also want to specially thank those setters who sometimes comment on the blogs of their own puzzles, giving insights into some of their thinking or explaining why editing issues have distorted their clues.
I wish you all a happy, healthy 2017.
Thank you Gaufrid for all that you do, including keeping us commenters in order, and thank you to the setters and bloggers.
A Happy New Year to everyone.
Thank you all, very much, for enlightenment, education, enjoyment and mental exercise. Best wishes for this to continue in 2017
Happy new year to all.
Put me down as another who’d like to thank Gaufrid for his sterling work (and I don’t just mean keeping the fabled Fifteen Squared drinks trolley stocked!). Thanks also to all the solvers, bloggers, setters and editors who made 2016 such a fun and engaging year in crossworld.
Hope you all have a crosstastic 2017. 🙂
As a blogger (of Inquisitor puzzles) holding down a full time job, it’s sometimes hard to find the time to finish the puzzle and/or finish the blog. Inevitably this leads to moments where I ask myself, “is it worth it?”
The answer is YES, OF COURSE. The feedback from other solvers and, indeed, the setters is great. My proudest moment was in The Fox and Roman in York overhearing a certain setter explains to others that my blog had “brought his puzzle to life” in ways he hadn’t imagined. click here
If anyone reading this has thought about going to an S&B meet but hasn’t quite plucked up the courage then try to get to one this year. They don’t bite!
And all this because of fifteensquared – thanks Gaufrid.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Happy new year to you all; look forward to what 2017 has in store for us in the world of crosswords. Many thanks to Gaufrid and all the contributors who work so hard to make this such a useful and enjoyable site – so glad I found it. Ruth@8 says it all.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times … in 2016 on 225 it was certainly the best of times. Plenty of enthusiasm for our harmless pastime in a crazy world, and some erudite comment about some excellent puzzles. Many thanks to Gaufrid and of course to all the setters, bloggers and commenters. Best wishes for 2017.
I first found this site by accident – one answer short in an Indy puzzle and from the crossing letters there seemed to be only one possible answer but I wasn’t even sure it was a word. It certainly wasn’t in Chambers so I googled it – and the first thing to come up was that day’s fifteensquared blog! The rest is history; I’ve enjoyed (and on occasion needed) the blogs, felt obliged to comment occasionally, and discovered the S&B gatherings. I’d certainly echo kenmac’s advice about getting to an S&B, and am hoping I won’t have to wait till the Fox & Roman in October to get to my next one.
So thanks a million, Gaufrid, and a Happy New Year to all.
My thanks and good wishes also to Gaufrid, the bloggers, setters and commenters. 225 is great!!
Thanks and Happy New Year to Gaufrid and all of the bloggers setters and commenters who make this site such a wonderful place.
This site is a wonderful resource, and Enigmatist’s December genius puzzle was a fitting and deserved tribute. Happy new year to everyone
Rob/Knut/Julius
Happy New Year everyone and I’d drink a toast to Gaufrid and the bloggers if my head were not still a little sensitive.
How we bloggers (well me at any rate) would cope without Geoff I just don’t know. He’s always there and unfailingly helpful in sorting out the cockups etc. And I’m eternally grateful to him for his advice to me when BT in their incompetence cut off my broadband for a while in April.
And the Indy went online only. We feared the worst. But there are still plenty of people commenting and I thank them all for that.
Many thanks to Gaufrid & Co, my fellow compilers, and the site’s many visitors. HNY to you all.
Yes, a Happy New Year.
‘I hope it’s a good one without any fear‘
Not so sure about that but the world (at least, mine and that of many others) wouldn’t be the same without Fifteensquared.
The last glass from the bottle in front of me now is there to drink a toast to everyone involved and Gaufrid in particular.
Cheers!
Happy New Year, everyone!
Like Wil Ransome @17, I’m eternally grateful to Gaufrid for patiently rescuing me from technical predicaments and for generally keeping us and the site in such good order.
Many thanks also to all setters, fellow-bloggers, commenters and lurkers – I hope to meet more of you in 2017.
My thanks and best wishes as well
As a frequent lurker and occasional commenter, Happy New Year. Thanks to all on fifteensquared for providing my daily dose of enlightenment and civilised discussion. Long may it continue!
Happy New Year to all. Special thanks and best wishes to Gaufrid and greetings to old pals Eileen, Kathryn’s Dad, Andrew, and Sil.
I’ll go along with everything Gaufris said, and add my thanks to him for this forum.
Happy New Year to all
Lovely to hear from you, Tupu @23 – I’ve missed you!
A huge thanks to Gaufrid for keeping Fifteensquared running so smoothly, to the bloggers who unfailingly come up with such excellent and lucid analyses of the puzzles and of course to the setters, especially those who take the trouble to drop in from time to time.
A very happy New Year’s setting, blogging and solving to all.
Happy New Year to all, and many thanks to Geoff for running the site so well.
I appreciate the time spent by bloggers in producing the text, and to the compilers who make our life difficult.
As a Brit living in the US, I’m very grateful for the sense of (crossword) community this site gives me. Many thanks indeed to setters, bloggers, Gaufrid and commenters.
Feliz año nuevo de Tenerife.
Salutations to setters and bloggers all and, once more, particular thanks to Gaufrid, whose quiet & polite patience and effortless competence in dealing with us duffers make him the Jeeves of this delightful site.
I mean, a chap has a seemingly insuperable problem, disaster looms, Destiny weaves her terrible web and then that man of ours sort of shimmers and the dark clouds turn to sunlight and all that sort of rot. Remarkable.
Happy New Year to the company.
Discovering the Guardian puzzles on line and soon after stumbling on 15squared has made a huge difference for me as a US solver. Many thanks to Gaufrid and all the others involved.
I found this site by chance some years ago, and have been a daily user ever since. It’s an excellent resource without which the daily crossword would be less pleasurable.
Thanks to everybody involved and a happy new year.
Happy New Year to all – with thanks to Gaufrid, bloggers, setters and contributors
Fifteensquared has become an important part of my life (mostly as a lurker) and a haven of reason and civil discourse in this post-truth world. Long may it continue and my heartfelt thanks to all bloggers, setters and especially to Gaufrid – Happy New Year
As Howard says. I couldn’t have put it better. Thanks and best wishes to all who make 225 the precious resource it is.
I’ve already popped my cork of appreciation under today’s Rufus puzzle, but I’ll do it again. 225 gave me a lot of pleasure in 2016 and makes 2017 a more pleasant prospect. Thanks in particular to Gaufrid. How, how, how does he do it?….
Thanks to Gaufrid for an excellent site and also for keeping the comments relevant to the puzzle – something that would benefit at least one other forum. Also thanks to the bloggers particularly those on FT duty which often must seem a thankless task but is much appreciated!
Happy New Year, Gaufrid. And Thanks.
Happy New Year all … am even late to this one.
May I add my appreciation to Geoff for running this informative site, the setters who give cause for it, the bloggers who provide a source of truth to it all and to all of the commenters who provide the virtual camaraderie that we from afar can join in.
Best wishes for 2017 to all !!
All I can say is that I’m hono[u]red to be in such company!
Thanka so much to Gaufrid for continuing to do a wonderful job, and a very happy new year to everyone on this marvellous site.
All best,
John (Paul)
We would like to add our thanks to all the compilers and bloggers, not forgetting other commenters.
But special thanks, as many others have said, must go to Gaufrid. You do a fantastic job, an example of which was helping me out when I was in China and temporarily had no access.
Cheers.
I’d just like to add my thanks to Gaufrid and the bloggers, particularly of the Guardian and Quiptic puzzles, as these are mostly the blogs I read.
It must be a bit disappointing (frustrating?) for bloggers of the less popular puzzles – they put in the same amount of effort at least, yet may only be read by a handful. Is it the free availability of the Guardian puzzles that make them pre-eminent here, or is it the quality of the puzzles?
muffin @43
All the blogs on this site get far more views than they do comments so definitely more than a handful of reads. All the daily puzzles that we cover are available online for free but the Guardian blogs have probably been more popular because far more people read this paper, particularly now that the Indy is online only.
By and large the quality of the puzzles in all three journals is on a par, which is perhaps to be expected when some setters contribute to more than one of the publications.
muffin @43
Wot Gaufrid said. Plus the Graun has comment sections for their puzzles which fosters a commenting community directly at crossword source. Also, I reckon it’s a lot easier to comment on a puzzle with a lot of comments than be the first commenter on a criminally neglected blog.
Either or anyways, it makes me admire the bloggers all the more as, although I don’t think they do it for the comments, it must be a bit disheartening to do all that work and feel as if no-one is appreciating it (so good to know there are loads of page views even if comments themselves are lacking).
… oh, forgot to say it also makes me more appreciate those who do comment, too. 🙂
Being regular Indy bloggers we expect there to be fewer comments for our blogs than any Grauniad puzzle. However, we know there are a number of lurkers out there as we didn’t comment for ages (as we said @1). The site though was so helpful for the odd clue which we really couldn’t parse. For this, we were (and still are) eternally grateful. We just hope our blogs help other solvers whether they comment or not.
As a counter to what Hoskins@45 says, on the rare occasions when I do the Graun puzzle, by the time I’ve solved it there are usually so many comments on the blog already that it I find it difficult to add anything useful to what everyone else has said. On the other hand I’m quite happy to be the first to comment on the Indy or, if it’s all been said, just to lurk for that day.
Glad to hear it, B&J and Mr C – and thank you for your excellent blogs and your getting things going on the commentless puzzles respectively. My thinking on not commenting on commentless puzzles was derived from my being happy to sidle up to a group and join in a conversation, but not being so eager to be the one to start the ball rolling (unless the sun is well past the yard arm); so it’s good to hear others aren’t as shy as mybadself.
Now ‘everything already being said’ on some puzzles has been mentioned, I wonder whether the Graun going up at midnight and the Indy not being around (unless one knows to manually enter the puzzle date in the URL) might also play a factor in things? I.E folks solve before bedtime and comment then or before work, but the poor Indyite is likely to solve on the way to work or at lunch and then, having had to suffer work, canna be bothered to comment (or has forgotten the puzzle altogether) by the time they get home? Of course, I fear all my reasoning might just be a way for me not to have to face the real reason folks comment less on my Indy puzzles than other setters’ in the Graun*.
Anyhoo, here’s hoping that some lurkers will de-lurk in 2017 and join the excellent Fifteen Squared community but, even if they don’t, as B&J say it’s about helping folks get into and understand crossies more and long may that and this site continue.
*coz I’m pants 🙂